The University of Alabama at Birmingham General Clinical Research Center is a multi-disciplinary facility available to faculty members of the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry for the pursuit of clinical investigation. The GCRC and its staff facilitate the meticulous control of experimental conditions, close observation and accurate monitoring of biologic phenomena, and the precise measurement of biochemical and physiological events which occur in patients and normal volunteers participating in research activities. In order to increase the efficiency and productivity of research efforts on individually funded projects, afford participants more flexibility in taking new research directions, and promoter more collaborative research among groups having multi- disciplinary approaches to science, we have negotiated construction of a new facility with University Hospital. This will include both inpatient and outpatient facilities as well as a processing laboratory and a Gene Therapy Core Laboratory in a discrete area on the ninth floor of the Medical Education Building, adjacent to the West Pavilion inpatient rooms. The Gene Therapy CORE will complement the UAB Gene Therapy/Vaccine Vector Core as well as address gene therapy needs for the present and anticipated future years. A separated suite of rooms which will house the CDMAS facility and offices for biostatisticians and coordinators will be located on the second floor of the same building directly below the GCRC unit and accessible via an elevator. In addition to the facilities listed above, this application includes a request for support for a Physiology and Metabolism Core Laboratory Facility, housed in the existing Energy Metabolism Research Unit in the Department of Nutrition Sciences. The proposed Physiology and Metabolism Core will provide access to expertise in the measurement and interpretation of physiological and provide access to expertise in the measurement and interpretation and of physiological and provide access to expertise in the measurement and interpretation of physiological and biochemical parameters essential conducting base clinical whole-body metabolic research for GCRC approved investigators. Changes in the GCRC facility will accommodate existing research activities as well as the perceived new emphasis on gene therapy.